Huge European Cargo Ship Launches Toward Space Station

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A massive European cargo ship soared into the evening sky off the
northeast coast of South America today, kicking off a weeklong
trip to deliver tons of supplies to the International Space
Station.

The unmanned spacecraft, called the Automated Transfer Vehicle 2,
blasted off atop Europe's workhorse Ariane 5 rocket from the
Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, at 4:50 p.m. EST
(2150 GMT) after a one-day delay due to a technical glitch.

Built for the European Space Agency, the ATV-2 weighs in at more
than 22 tons (about 20,000 kilograms), making it the heaviest
European robotic spacecraft ever launched into space. It beat out
its predecessor, the ATV-1 spacecraft, by about a ton, ESA
officials said.

ESA officials christened the spacecraft the ATV-2
Johannes Kepler, after the famed German astronomer and
mathematician who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries. It is
packed with about 7.1 tons (6,400 kilograms) of supplies for the
space station's six-person crew and is due to arrive at the
orbiting laboratory Feb. 24.

The flawless liftoff was the 200th launch for the Ariane rocket
family, which is managed by the European launch service provider
Arianespace.

Arianespace attributed the delay in the ATV-2 launch to "a
measurement anomaly" in the rocket's liquid oxygen tank.

That 24-hour slip has prompted NASA to consider a possible delay
of its own for the upcoming space shuttle Discoveryflight to the
space station,due
to space traffic concerns. Discovery is
currently slated to launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in
Florida Feb. 24. That would have been one day after the ATV-2
spacecraft arrived at the space station, but now both events will
be occurring on the same day.

NASA officials suggested today they might put off the launch for
Discovery's STS-133 mission for a day, to restore the buffer
between the shuttle launch and ATV-2 docking, but they later said
Discovery may stick with its initial launch day and time.

"STS-133 launch will not necessarily slip as previously thought,"
officials at the Kennedy Space Center announced via Twitter.

A final decision will be made by top NASA shuttle program
managers on Friday (Feb. 18).

Discovery's STS-133 mission is an 11-day flight to deliver a
humanoid robot and a new storage room to the International Space
Station. The mission already has been delayed months by fuel tank
problems. It will be the
final flight of shuttle Discovery before NASA retires its
three-shuttle fleet later this year.

Big delivery for space station

The Johannes Kepler is ESA's largest cargo delivery mission yet
to the space station. The cylindrical spacecraft is 35 feet (10.7
meters) long and 14.7 feet (4.5 meters) wide.

"It's exactly the size of a double-decker bus in London," said
ESA astronaut Jean-François Clervoy,
who helped designed the interfaces that astronauts will use to
unpack cargo inside the spacecraft.

ATV spacecraft are designed to fly to the
International Space Station, dock themselves at the aft end
of the station's Russian segment and spend about six months
attached to the orbiting lab before being discarded to burn up in
Earth's atmosphere.

As its name suggests, the ATV-2 is the second of at least five
spacecraft the ESA plans to use for cargo runs to the space
station. The first ATV, called the Jules Verne, flew itself to
the space station in March 2008 and was discarded later that
year.

The cargo in the unmanned spacecraft is expected to typically
include about 6 tons of supplies. ATV-2 Johannes Kepler beats
that average by just over a ton. Arianespace and ESA officials
have said upgrades to the Ariane 5 rocket allow the extra
payload.

The cargo packed inside the Johannes Kepler includes 3,527 pounds
(1,600 kg) of equipment and other dry supplies, 1,873 pounds (850
kg) of rocket propellant for the station's thrusters and 220
pounds (100 kg) of oxygen for the station's crew.

Europe's ATV spacecraft are part an international fleet of
robotic ships that ferry cargo to the space station. Russia's
unmanned Progress vehicles and
Japan's cargo ships, known as H-2 Transfer Vehicles, also
provide shipments to the station.

In the last month, all three spacecraft have launched toward the
space station. Once NASA's shuttle fleet retires, the U.S. agency
plans to rely on its Russian, Japanese and European partners to
provide cargo and crew transportation to the station until new
commercial American spacecraft become available.

In the meantime, ESA officials said they are looking forward to
next week's planned ATV-2 docking at the space station.

"This is a first step for ATV," Dordain said of the launch,
adding that the mission still has a half-year to go. "We are far
from declaring it a success … Success will be declared six months
from now."

The next ATV to fly will be the ATV-3 Edoardo Amaldi, named after
the Italian physicist who died in 1989. It is scheduled to launch
in 2012.

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on
Twitter@tariqjmalik.